Pens are cool, you know. They live in London and they go to cool people parties and do cool people things. I don't really know what they do at these parties, because I'm not cool enough to be invited. But I bet the prizes they have in their games of pass-the-parcel are like, REALLY amazing. They probably know all the people who do photography for Vice at gigs and they'll see Internet Forever around maybe and be like: “hi,” or maybe their friends I don't know, but they'll just be sizing them up, you know: “whose band is cooler? I think probably my band is cooler.” This is just hearsay and conjecture, it's entirely in my own head. London is a big castle built on an ever-shifting mountain of sand, right?The other thing about Pens that you might not know is, they make really good music. Two of them used to be in that band Look Look Dancing Boys, and they seem to be coming from a place that evidences just as much fun in making music, but is at the same time much more sophisticated, or at least a whole lot less puerile. And what Pens sound like is, well, they sound like someone has slowed down the Vivian Girls, or given them a lot of pills that mess with their time perception, or something, so they are doing everything in slightly skewed intervals to the rest of us. Or someone has given the Vivian Girls a brain injury, or something. Or maybe someone has played a different trick on all three.Actually I think what I'm really trying to say is, they sound like the Vivian Girls only better, because the Vivian Girls sound like they can play their instruments properly and things. That's no fun. Pens don't even attempt to sound like they can, almost as a sort of anti-point, like they've tried to extract anything resembling effort from their music (like, actively TRIED to), because they're not like slow or anything, they just don't sound like they're trying to be as fast, or if they are they're falling over more, so anyway as a result it's come out just that bit better because, well, effort kind of sucks in 2009. I mean, we're all going to die of swine flu soon, what do we care? And that's if we don't get killed by banks or expenses or policemen. It's a cold world out there. I'm beginning to feel a little frosty myself.But, effort or no, Pens can write songs, and they can write really good songs too. 'Horsie' is genuinely interesting musically on the nearest thing I can imagine to an objective level, and plus it's awesome too, with it's frantic main synth part and stuff diddley diddley diddley diddley. Following it 'I Sing Just For You' is all tender and nice, but also dead-on simple-stupid (“1, 2, 1, 2, I sing just for you”) and then later on you have stuff like 'Freddie' which sounds kind of epic only not. And 'Hate You Calendar', which has like the best delivery of the word “calendar” in it ever possible like how 'Docktor Faustus' is mostly just built around Mark E Smith's ability to say “Doktor Faustus” really really well. It's not all quite that good I guess though. The generic hardcore of '1-2' and album closer 'Know About Me' is pretty boring, but that might be personal taste more than anything else to be honest cos I don't like boring music but I know a lot of you out there do (L00sers - no I'm just kidding, you're a wonderful person).Basically, this album is fun and you should get it.Pens on Myspace